SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
SEPTEMBER 13, 2021
BOSTON, MA AT TD GARDEN
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR
Announcers: Jimmy Smith, Byron Saxton, Corey Graves
Match Results from Last Week and Exclusives
- WWE Champion Bobby Lashley & MVP won a Tag Team Turmoil match to earn the right to face RKBro (Randy Orton & Riddle) for the Raw Tag Team Championship tonight on Raw (at least that’s what was advertised. More on this later.) Here’s the order of results:
New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods defeated the Viking Raiders (Erik & Ivar).
New Day defeated Jinder Mahal & Veer.
New Day defeated Lucha House Party (Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado).
New Day defeated Mace & T-Bar. Mace & T-Bar attacked New Day and Mansoor & Mustafa Ali. The turmoil match was delayed until later in the show by Sonya Deville & Adam Pearce because of the attack by Mace & T-Bar.
New Day defeated Mansoor & Mustafa Ali.
A.J. Styles & Omos defeated New Day.
Bobby Lashley & MVP defeated Styles & Omos.
- Sheamus defeated Drew McIntyre.
- Nikki ASH & Rhea Ripley defeated Women’s Tag Team Champions Natalya & Tamina.
- Karrion Kross defeated John Morrison. Earlier, Kross was a guest on John’s show Moist TV.
- Charlotte Flair defeated Nia Jax to retain the Raw Women’s Championship. Alexa Bliss then appeared in the ring after Charlotte refused to go to her playground.
- Reggie defeated Akira Tozawa to retain the 24/7 Championship.
Arena
WWE returns to TD Garden in Boston, MA for the first time since February 28, 2020, which was merely weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the U.S. I distinctly remember babyface Roman Reigns issuing a challenge to the newly crowned Universal Champion Goldberg for a match at WrestleMania, and “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt challenging John Cena to a match by pointing at the WrestleMania sign. Boy how times have changed.
WWE has announced five matches ahead of the show, likely due to competing with NFL during week one of Monday Night Football. The Las Vegas Raiders host the Baltimore in Allegiant Stadium, marking the first regular season game played in that arena and the first for the Raiders in their new home of Las Vegas. Allegiant Stadium hosted the 2021 edition of SummerSlam.
Advertised Matches & Segments
Damian Priest: U.S. Championship Open Challenge
Like John Cena before him, Damian Priest will issue an open challenge for the U.S. Championship tonight. He defeated Sheamus to win the title at SummerSlam and retained over Sheamus and Drew McIntyre two weeks ago in an impromptu triple threat match. Pries pinned McIntyre, former two-time WWE Champion. Last week when Sheamus defeated long-time friend and rival McIntyre, he earned the right to face Priest at Extreme Rules for the championship.
Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya
Former Raw Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley has been pairing with Nikki ASH, a former recent champion herself. Nikki won Money in the Bank and cashed in successfully on Charlotte Flair, who regained the title at SummerSlam in a triple threat match involving Rhea and Nikki. Last week, Rhea and Nikki defeated Women’s Tag Team Champions Natalya & Tamina in a non-title match. Prior to the match they were talking to Sarah Schreiber backstage and discussed working on having things in common. Nikki suggested they release “Super Brutality,” a play (I guess) on Nikki being almost a superhero (how friggin’ close is she?) and Rhea’s “brutality” gimmick. Anyway, Rhea goes one-on-one with Natalya tonight. They had a match two months ago just before Rhea dropped the title to Charlotte.
New Day and Mansoor & Mustafa Ali vs. A.J. Styles & Omos and Mace & T-Bar
The tag team division gets some attention again this week as the babyface teams of New Day and Mansoor & Mustafa Ali (technically they’re babyfaces) take on the heel teams of A.J. Styles & Omos and Mace & T-Bar. I already mentioned what happened between all these teams in the recap during the tag team turmoil match last week. There is deeper history. Styles & Omos defeated New Day at WrestleMania to win the Raw Tag Team Championship. New Day feuded with Mace & T-Bar when they were in Retribution towards the end of last years. Recently, Mansoor & Ali went back and forth with Mace & T-Bar. Styles & Omos went to the final match but came up short to WWE Champion Bobby Lashley and MVP. Omos and Lashley briefly faced off.
WWE Championship: Bobby Lashley (champ) vs. Randy Orton
During the opening segment last week, former WWE Champion and current co-holder of the Raw Tag Team Championship Randy Orton challenged Bobby Lashley to a WWE Championship match, which MVP accepted on Lashley’s behalf. Meanwhile, Lashley and MVP said they wanted to insert themselves into the tag team turmoil match, which they ultimately did and won the right to face Randy and Riddle (RKBro) tonight for the titles.
During Friday night’s edition of Smackdown, it was announced that instead of the tag team championship match taking place tonight, it will be Lashley vs. Orton for the WWE Championship. The same is still advertised for Extreme Rules.
Non-Title Match: Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair vs. Shayna Baszler
As I mentioned earlier, Charlotte Flair retained the Raw Women’s Championship over Nia Jax who was flanked by Shayna Baszler. During what would become the finishing sequence, Shayna inadvertently distracted Nia allowing Charlotte to hit Natural Selection for the win. After the match, you could see Shayna with a bit of a devious smile on her face, almost as if she was happy Charlotte retained. Tonight, Charlotte goes one-on-one with Shayna. They last had a match back in March, which wasn’t advertised prior to the show:
Charlotte and Shayna were the last two women in the 2020 Royal Rumble, won by Charlotte. It was announced that Charlotte will defend her title against Alexa Bliss at Extreme Rules.
Frank’s Analysis: It looks like a loaded show, and with two title matches one might say that’s the case, but to me it looks loaded because WWE is advertising much more than they usually do. I would imagine going up against week one of Monday Night Football, and the fact that AEW Dynamite beat them in the key 18-49 demographic have a lot to do with it. To me the show looks no different, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Believe it or not I’m curious where they’re headed with Shayna as it seems the break-up with Nia could be coming. This was the case a few weeks ago, but then they did nothing. We’ll see if they’re on track for that and what’s next for Shayna.
It’s anybody’s guess who will answer the open challenge. My guess is Keith Lee, but since returning to TV he’s been off for a few weeks again. Who knows what’s happening there and I don’t want to assume anything?
The eight-man tag to me is just there. I wish they would give Mace & T-Bar a makeover and lose the makeup and outfits and give them their names back. This doesn’t have to be the 1980s-90s where everyone needs a gimmick name. I’m interested where they’re going with Mansoor & Ali, but Mansoor being the rah-rah guy is just weird. I wish he were more serious and focused on doing the right thing with Ali trying to get him to do whatever it takes, which I guess they’re kind of doing, but Mansoor just looks like a goof.
Rhea and Natalya should be a fun match, but Natalya & Tamina have really been marginalized having lost multiple matches to Tegan Nox & Shotzi on Smackdown and now Rhea and Nikki. This is the same people wrestling again, only a variation of what took place last week.
Lashley vs. Randy for the title with it still taking place at Extreme Rules is an odd choice considering they advertised Lashley & MVP going after RKBro tonight for the titles. Again, it could be an attempt to load the show with football starting up, but most fans expect a screw finish. What are you accomplishing then WWE? I wish WWE would stick to what they advertise and change less often. It may matter to some who look at multiple changes as incompetence and having no respect for the audience.
Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!
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